


What the Water Gave Me

by MellytheHun



Series: The Mermaid AU [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evil Peter Hale, Flirting, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Gift Fic, M/M, Merman Derek, Merpeople, Murder, Romance, Surfer Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:46:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9538421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Stiles returns to thank and further harass his savior.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuchs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuchs/gifts).



> Hannah! I really struggled to write something for you that I thought was quality enough. I toyed with a couple AUs, but it eventually occurred to me that you might /like/ a mermaid!AU and seeing as I had written an opening to one a while back, I thought, in honor of your win, I would continue it in a second part for your enjoyment - not only that, but that I will make more installments into this universe. I hope you like where it goes <3 You are lovely and the rest of your gifts will be on their way to you soon. <3

"Did anyone on your blog believe you?"

To appease Derek and hopefully soften up that coarse outer (emotional) layer he seems to have, Stiles brought fresh fruit. He never asked Derek if he was a vegetarian or strictly carnivorous, seeing as his torso looked like the result of a protein-only diet, so he had to wing it. Stiles figured he couldn't go wrong with fruit and so bought what amounted to the entire produce section at the local grocery shop. The entire time, Scott asked a lot of questions, like 'why are you getting two of every kind of apple?' and 'since when do you eat oranges?' and making inane observations like, 'other people might want watermelon, Stiles,' and 'I honestly can't think of any reason you would ever need two entire cantaloupe,' and 'but you hate green grapes,' and to all of this, Stiles' effective and go-to response was, 'stop questioning me, Scott, I'm in shock, I was attacked by a shark today.' 

To bail on Scott for the afternoon, he excused himself by saying he needed to confront and 'conquer' this traumatic site and not to look for him, for he was 'soul-searching,' in a therapeutic, if ill-advised type of prolonged-exposure technique. Thus, he packed the Jeep full of fruit and was pleasantly surprised to find Derek already wading in the water by the time he made it out of his car. The little private beach was almost always unpopulated - it had been Stiles' mother's secret getaway before she fell ill. It didn't have a proper name, since almost no one knew it existed, though his mother used to have a complicated Polish name for it. It was far, far out of town, beyond some wooded areas where no trails lie. As far as Stiles is aware, only his father, himself and Scott know how to find this beach. The guaranteed privacy seemed to put some of Derek's anxiety to rest and he swam up to the shore.

He kept all but his chest and arms in the water, letting the short waves lap over his back and tail. He was inordinately pleased at the sight of strawberries. Stiles took note.

"Not a single soul," Stiles answers, smiling wryly. 

He knew no one would believe him - it's the internet. It's always worth a shot.

"Good. I don't wanna wind up in a traveling circus." 

"I'm wounded, Derek," Stiles tells him, biting down to the core of his Gala apple, "I would never let anyone capture you."

Derek levels Stiles with a serious gaze and the mood shifts immediately. Stiles, inelegantly, shoves most of his chewed up apple piece into his left cheek before swallowing roughly. His neck feels hot and he's not sure it has much to do with the sun.

"I... have you been captured before?"

Avoiding eye-contact, Derek grabs a handful of blueberries, popping them into his mouth before simply nodding and seeming content to leave it at that.

"Holy shit, dude, I - I'm sorry, I'd have never said, I mean..." Stiles trails off, not knowing quite what to say or ask.

"It's fine. There was no way for you to know," Derek reassures him, still looking away, though. 

"I... I wanna ask about it," Stiles ventures gently, "but I am like the last person on Earth who would want to dredge up bad memories for you. If you - just... if you ever want to talk about it, I'd be fascinated and... uhm, emotionally available... for that. For you."

That appears to be the right thing to say because a shy smile replaces the grim, thin line Derek's mouth had become. 

"Thanks, Stiles."

Stiles gives a happy nod and then asks, "so, you mentioned being Turned. Like Turned _into_ a merperson. You weren't born one?"

"No - merpeople aren't born. They're made."

Cocking a curious brow, Stiles asks, "wait, so... were you born human?"

"I'm still human," Derek insists, "I'm just slightly... more. But I know what you're asking. You've seen my bellybutton."

"Sorry - no, I know you're human, I... that was the wrong thing to say. Sorry. I... yeah, but I... I dunno," Stiles tells him, "I guess I just didn't put it together? That you had to have had an umbilical cord at some point? Sorry if I'm being -"

"Stop apologizing, Stiles."

"Sorry."

Derek gives him a dry stare, but smirks and Stiles rolls his eyes, letting his head hang in mock shame, though he's smiling down at the sand.

"I'll give you the full story if you promise not to freak out."

"You are well aware that I can make no such promise."

Letting himself laugh at that, Derek shakes his head and responds with feigned suffering, "yeah, I figured."

To show that he is calmly and gladly readying himself for Derek's story, Stiles bites into his apple, picks his head up, plants his chin in his hand, his elbow in the sand and smiles. Derek stares at him for a few beats - Stiles isn't entirely sure why. Derek's kaleidoscope eyes are roaming all over his face and he can't tell if Derek is assessing him, sizing him up, appreciating him or trying to read something into his smile. It's a genuine one, so if Derek's absurdly beautiful eyes can read him like an open book, he's positive all Derek will find is authentic intrigue and contentedness. A few quiet moments pass like that, Stiles patient and Derek being... well, bizarrely intriguing and unreadable. Then he speaks again, low and a little gravely.

"Around fifteen years ago, my uncle Peter came with us on a family trip. My dad had a boat - a big one. He really liked sailing. We all did. I never understood the specifics of what happened that night..."

Derek doesn't continue for a while, clearly gathering himself and putting together in his own mind how he wants to tell the story. There's a sinking feeling in Stiles' chest, but he doesn't speak to it or let it creep onto his face in any way. 

"My younger sister, Cora - she was maybe twelve at the time - she came into my room in the middle of the night, pale as a ghost. All she said was 'dad and uncle Peter are fighting.' She seemed really scared and I couldn't get why. It wasn't uncommon for my dad and Peter to have it out if they'd had too much to drink or something, but there was something about the way she said it that I... I don't know. Something was wrong and I could tell. I asked her where mom was and she said she didn't know, which started setting off alarm bells in my head, but I ignored them. My older sister, Laura was sleeping in the bunk above mine and I decided not to wake her - I thought... well, I thought wrong. I followed Cora out to the top deck and I saw, near the bow, my uncle and father weren't just fighting - my father was trying to get a gun out of Peter's hands."

Stiles' face falls, heart thudding somewhere in his throat while Derek's eyes ghost over, looking paler than what is usual, looking far away. His head is bent down, like he were watching the surplus of fruit, but really, he's staring blankly into some middle distance. 

"The waters weren't violent that night or anything, but it was rocky. They couldn't keep their balances well. One or both of them were going to go overboard - on a shift, I saw just... a pool of red slide down the deck from a part of the midship I couldn't see well. I knew my mother's hair well enough, though. I knew it was her head on the floor and there was too much blood for her to be alive. I panicked. I told Cora to get back down to the rooms and to wake up Laura, get the radio, send for help. I... I don't know what happened. I think something about the ship - if it were lost and my family lost with it, the substantial insurance taken out on it would've been handed down to Peter. I didn't figure that out at the time. That was just in retrospect that I understood what was happening. At the time, I was twenty-three, had to keep my sisters from finding out our mother was dead on the midship and somehow get to my father in time."

"...what _happened_?"

The gravity of Stiles' question isn't lost on Derek. He shakes his head, to say he doesn't know - he doesn't know what happened to Peter's humanity, he doesn't know what drove him to murder that night, he doesn't know how he found in himself whatever quality it is he needed to try to fight off family from family. 

"When my father spotted me, he panicked. He yelled at me to get back below deck and shut the bedroom door. I don't even know what I said back. It was dark and everything seemed so loud... I don't know. I did figure out, though that staying up there was only distracting him and I... I went back down," Derek admits, shaking his head as if in shame, "I shut the door, I locked us in. Cora said the radio hadn't worked and Laura was trying to get past me to the door when we heard the gun go off. It scared her enough that she stopped fighting me. We heard another pop and then it was quiet. The boat lurched and... I hadn't realized any water was in the room until it sloshed against my feet."

"Holy shit," Stiles breathes out, "Your uncle -"

"He was flooding the boat," Derek confirms, gesticulating with his hands, "I told my sisters to stay. I thought I'd... I would just get the raft ready and call them up - it was clear by then that our father wasn't... no one was coming for us. Peter was going to drown us with the ship. But when I made it to the deck, I found Peter already lowering himself into the water in the raft - all our emergency provisions, the handheld radio, the flare gun - he had taken it all with him. I yelled back to my sisters to get their life jackets on and got four bullets in my chest for the trouble."

Unintentionally, Stiles gasps and Derek's eyes flicker to his. He smiles sardonically and mutters, "yeah. Honestly, I hardly felt it. I was in too much shock. I fell overboard, I watched the bottom of the raft float away, watched the ship go down slowly - it took something like fifteen or twenty minutes. I had no idea if either of my sisters were still on board or not. At some point, the boat was capsizing and my mother's body slid off the boat. She hit the water right next to me. I grabbed her by the wrist and... there was a pulse."

Stiles grins, secondhand euphoria taking hold of him and Derek smiles weakly again, nodding, "yeah. Yeah, it was - that moment... I didn't even realize how alone I felt until I realized I wasn't. She was bleeding from her abdomen and I thought that if I could get something around the wound, apply some pressure, she might... I don't even know. It doesn't matter. Before I could do anything, I heard a voice - in my head."

"A merperson," Stiles surmised, "Merpeople found you?"

"We were out on the open ocean - merpeople are fast, can smell a drop of blood within a twenty mile radius and they must've been on their way as soon as they heard gunshots. I thought I might be hallucinating, but it was a woman - a mermaid. Noshiko. She wore matching rings with the merman next to her and they seemed to have a daughter with them. Noshiko asked me if I loved my mother and I told that of course I did and she told me that... to save her, I had to drown her."

"What?"

"It's - that's how it's done. Drowned for the sake of love. It doesn't always work. It did, with my mother. I... I gave her CPR as best I could, given the situation - just to get her breathing well enough that I could drown her. For a while, she was just limp and I was wrecked - I thought - I _screamed_ at Noshiko, I thought - but - just a moment passed and then I saw my mother's eyes open. Her gunshot wound was closed up and I watched her legs bind and lengthen and I realized what had happened. I held her in the water for a long time and she cried and asked me where my sisters where and I told her I didn't know, that I was sorry, then I passed out. I'd lost too much blood and the adrenaline crash was intense and I just... I didn't even mind if I was dying. I was sort of relieved, to be honest. When I came to, I was surrounded by Noshiko's family, my mother and Cora. I asked about Laura, but - to Turn, you have to be alive. You can't... it's not, uhm... Cora got out of the bedroom, went looking for me, for help, for anything - Laura had tried to keep Cora with her, but Cora was pretty distraught when she heard Peter firing on me. She left the bedroom and the boat took on too much water. There was no way for her to know. When the boat lurched, my mother was thrown off one side and Cora off the other."

When it seems like Derek is going to leave the story there, Stiles' brow pulls in tight and he hesitantly assumes, "...Laura drowned in the room?"

With a true, deeply suffering sigh, Derek nods and answers, "yes. The door was closed to her from both sides from the water pressure, the windows were too tough for her to break through and the room filled up as it capsized. Mom had tried to revive her when they got hold of her body, but..."

Whatever hand gesture Derek makes, it seems to embody helplessness. Stiles frowns and asks, "...what about your dad?"

"Shot through the head, twice. I didn't let my mother look at the body. I put it on the ship with Laura's as it sank and told her that I was sure it was too late. The Yukimura's - Noshiko's family - they took us in. They brought us back to their school, helped us mourn, gave us some semblance of normalcy. There's a culture, economy, language - it was really like learning to walk again. The school was big - it took a lot to feed everyone. I started helping Ken - Noshiko's husband - to deep-sea dive. We collected rare fish, went to markets and exchanged it all for cash. We'd buy however much food we could bring back to the shore and that became my sole purpose. I just... I needed to get out of my own head. Having something to do, to keep me busy -"

"It must have helped enormously," Stiles guesses.

"It did. That's how I eventually became an Alpha. I could dive deeper than anyone else, provided more and my body started to change. Being the Alpha doesn't really mean I'm in charge of everyone or anything. It was more like I was the head of Hales the way Noshiko was the Alpha of the Yukimura's."

"So, you all stay together? Why haven't - I mean, are you breaking any rules? Talking to me and stuff?"

A partially sincere huff of a laugh escapes Derek's chest and he shakes his head, "no. We're not... I'm alone now."

Stiles' brow furrows.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't have... it's... it's a long story. Another time, Stiles."

"Of course, I - of course. Don't feel pressured or... thank you."

Derek cocks a brow at him and Stiles smiles something watery but not disingenuous. 

"That... couldn't have been easy to relive. You don't seem like a guy that shares parts of himself like that. So. Thank you. For trusting me with it."

This brings another smile to Derek's face, his eyes light up with life again and Stiles' breathes a sigh of relief. 

Smiling down at the strawberries and taking one up to his lips, Derek offers, "you know, if you bring me some clothes next time, I could go get dinner with you or something. We're not limited to the shore."

Stiles' heart thumps excitedly and he swears Derek can hear it or sense it or feel it or something - he looks too smug not to have felt it somehow. As it is, Stiles is fine with Derek being smug around him. 

"I would really, really, _really_ like that."


End file.
